Colorado Eagles falter again at Alaska

Eagles' offense non-existent against Aces

By Sports Staff

Posted:
01/01/2013 12:17:34 AM MST

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The Colorado Eagles will gladly take a chance to turn the calendar to 2013 after the finish to 2012.

Another year-end trip to Alaska proved fruitless with three straight losses, the third coming on Monday night with a 4-2 loss to the Aces in which Colorado managed just three shots on goal while allowing two first period goals to fall behind. Alaska made it 4-0 before the goal-starved Eagles finally got on the board, and the Aces extended their win streak to eight games.

No team in the Western Conference has been able to successfully play catch-up against the Aces, and Saturday was no different. Trent Daavettila and Devin DiDiomete scored power-play goals for the Eagles, but Alaska improved to 19-0-0 when scoring first. Gerald Coleman got the win in net for Alaska, while Kyle Jones took the loss for Colorado.

The Eagles, still playing a bit short on the bench, found themselves lacking in offense the entire series, and the start to Saturday's game marked a low point for the season. The three shots for the first period marked the fewest in any frame this season, and Alaska was able to bury a couple -- one on the power play -- to take the lead. Gary Nunn started the scoring at 8:15 off a turnover that left Jones as the only defense, and the Aces made it 2-0 at 15:52 on a goal from Alexandre Imbeault.

Colorado cranked up the chances in the second and third frames to keep the shot count relatively close, but Alaska was able to score twice more in the second period before Jones gave way to Adam Brown. Joey Crabb notched his 15th goal of the season at the 7:00 mark, and Nick Mazzolini made it 4-0 just 24 seconds later.

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DiDiomete scored his first Eagles goal at 9:40, but the next goal of the game didn't come until 15 minutes had passed in the third frame. Daavettila registered his 13th goal of the season in a 5-on-3 chance, but the Eagles could not creep any closer.

Brown came in and stopped all 14 shots he faced to provide some good news for the team as they head to San Francisco to play the Bulls on Wednesday night. However, forward Dylan Hood was injured in the third period Saturday, another blow to a team battling several injuries.